


not in so many words

by witticaster



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Hanging mention, Suicide mention, alcohol mention, it's been a little while so who knows if my continuity is right, probably set somewhere around Dream Thieves?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 23:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8774488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witticaster/pseuds/witticaster
Summary: there's a difference between never lying and always telling the truth





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompted by the ever-spectacular [bitchimightwing](http://bitchimightwing.tumblr.com/) on tumblr (otherwise known as [talefeathers](http://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/works) on here, if you want in on some amazing storytelling go check her out), who wanted Ronan + Gansey: "stop telling me you're okay"

Ronan never runs the faucet after he brushes his teeth, so Gansey knows that the frothy mix of saliva and toothpaste is always tinged pink. Not enough flossing, Gansey surmises. He stands in the convenience store looking at thirteen boxes of floss, buys the one that promises to get at tough bacteria with micro-grains, and leaves it kindly on the bathroom counter. The next morning, Ronan has made a tiny noose out of floss and hanged Gansey’s toothbrush.

Gansey frees his toothbrush and throws the noose in the trash.

* * *

He drank a lot last night. More than usual, probably, even though it’s hard to make that kind of estimate anymore. Gansey buys a six-pack of ginger ale and puts it in front of Ronan’s bedroom door.

Ronan walks in on him working on the miniature Henrietta. He has a Canada Dry in hand, but when he offers Gansey a sip, Gansey realizes that he’s emptied it and poured vodka in, instead. He splutters and glares. _What the hell?_ Ronan walks away laughing.

* * *

Their test over Hamlet is tomorrow, and it’s unlikely that Ronan is ready, seeing as he never bought the book. Gansey considers buying one for him, maybe one of those No Fear Shakespeare copies (which Blue has mixed feelings over, he knows that from about eight lengthy conversations), but no, that’s too on the nose. Something like that is just waiting to be set on fire in a trash can. Instead, Gansey prints out a summary and a study guide, weeding out pages until it looks like a casual enough stack. Halfway between studying and cheating; it might work. He leaves it on Ronan’s nightstand.

When Gansey half-ironically lays down in bed to try sleeping that night, he finds that his pillow is filled with shredded paper. It’s Chainsaw’s style. He holds a scrap up to the light.

_HORATIO: A countenance more in sorrow than in_

* * *

It’s the anniversary of Niall Lynch’s death. Ronan wakes up with animal bones tangled into his sheets.

Gansey hears him shouting and cursing like he’s in the middle of a fight; he comes in just in time to watch Ronan kick some kind of skull off the foot of the bed in his struggle to get out. He falls onto the ground, tiny ribcages falling with him, and stares at Gansey with something like helplessness.

So Gansey tells him to sit outside and breathe, because Gansey will take care of this. He can take care of this. He grabs an empty trash bag and loads the bones in, vertebrae and tibias and scapulas, but those are the only names he can think of. There are some teeth, canines maybe.

He drags the trash bag under his desk. He’ll get rid of it later.

Ronan is perched like a gargoyle just outside, his left temple pressed against his knee while the other leg dangles motionlessly. Gansey sits down next to him.

“Stop telling me you’re okay,” he says.

Ronan looks up, indignant, confused. “I didn’t-“

The talking isn’t the point, it never is. All the dumb crap lines up in a series of pictographs, spelling out the lie he thinks he can sell if he never says it out loud.

Ronan presses his fingertips against his eyelids. “Everything’s fucked up all the time,” he says. “Might as well be okay.”

Gansey’s gut instinct is to say no, of course not, they don’t have to resign themselves to that kind of logic, it’s not like that, but that’d make his whole ‘no more lying’ spiel a little hypocritical.

Instead, he says, “Fine. So how are you doing?”

A strange little grin emerges from under Ronan’s pallor. “Oh, you know. All fucked up.”


End file.
